if we can call them friends then we can call them on their telephones

[fingersandteeth]

Who: Steven Durante + the other Rockets
Where: Various places in Goldenrod City + over poke-Skype
When: Late March/Early April
Summary: Steven has a few emotional conversations with his co-workers
Rating: PG-13, with the inevitable likeliness of some threads going up to R in terms of language and conversational subjects. Anything too wicked goes to an inbox.

[This is a catchall post for various inter-Rocket threads with Steven taking place at the end of March/first half of April, with the starters for those threads in their own comments inside.]

Comments

Lydia

[fingersandteeth]

They do lunch at a fairly classy place with private dining rooms, near to the water, and needless to say, the card that Steven hands back to the waiter at the end of the meal has Handsome Jack's name on it and not his--but it's also clear enough that said waiter knows him already. The meal itself passes convivially enough in one of those private rooms, with Steven describing his own, earlier trips to Lavender Town and listening raptly to Lydia's tales of Wonderland in return, occasionally asking questions about the visitors there to prompt yet another recollection.

Lunch goes a bit longer than usual, but then Steven only had a half-shift this morning at the Tower. The rest of his day is free. So once they're done, he takes her back to Jack's house with him, unlocking the door with his own key, and ushering her into Jack's living room, where he takes a moment to indicate that she sit on one of the leather couches while he lights a fire in the fireplace.

Once that's done, he says, almost gently, "So. You were going to tell me about the circumstances that led up to needing Wonderland."

[wonderland_vogue]

A rather nice and peaceful affair, something she'd needed after her time bouncing between cities and seeming to encounter ever ghost under the sun. But it hadn't stopped her from continuing on with her ridiculous stores, lord knows she had a ton to tell with how long she'd been dealing with Wonderland's shenanigans.

Of course Steven doesn't have to tell her twice to sit once they're in that living room and she's making herself comfortable with a soft sigh. As per usual, her zoroark is rarely in his ball and is just plopping himself down on the floor just off to her side.

"... Technically it's more what led me to become a lich and then to Wonderland. But the two things are closely connected enough where it works." She shifts a little more to make sure she's comfortable, letting her gaze shift to the ceiling.

"I had another brother, a younger brother named Keats."

[fingersandteeth]

Over the years, Steven has been well acquainted with taking what amount of empathy he has been graced with and making every bit of it stretch when it comes to dealing with normal people. But when it comes to this, he doesn't need to in order to sympathize with Lydia. Because he's been there. He knows, now, what happened to Edward—and he can tell that what happened to Keats wouldn't have been much better.

He knows what it is to lose a beloved sibling.

"Oh Lydia," he murmurs and the sympathy in his voice is utterly sincere.

[wonderland_vogue]

Sympathy isn't exactly what she's looking for and she's sucking in a breath through gritted teeth, though any annoyance is quickly lost once again as she remembers who exactly she's talking to. Right, there's no reason to get upset with him when he knows exactly what she's had to deal with before.

"It was just the three of us for the longest time, myself and Edward having learned illusion spells in order to keep us going and support ourselves. It was... mostly fine and dandy. But then Keats... he got sick. With something that evidently couldn't be cured at the time. We still don't know what it was, exactly." She pauses for a moment as her zoroark is shifting to force his head under her hand, to scratch his ears while she keeps on.

"We thought maybe we could figure something out with necromancy, you know? We were... desperate, to put it mildly. It didn't work and we had come to realize that we also had grown a love for the art and I guess we held a bit of pettiness towards the sect we'd been involved in and became liches just to prove to them that we were stronger than them, smarter than them, than their stupid bullshit childish way of going about the art."

[fingersandteeth]

"Well, yes," he says, softly. "That's very reasonable. I don't know if I'd have done any differently in your place." He's quiet for a moment. "My uncle got sick like that. When I was seven. He died less than a year later. We know what it was, but I don't know how much that helps when there was no cure. If I'd had the option to try to save him with necromancy, I'd have taken it. Just like I'd have done anything to bring Charley back after I came home to find her missing."

He shakes his head. "Keats was your Charley, I guess," he says and it settles something in him to put that notion into words. "Not that... losing Edward wasn't horrible too. But it's different when it's a younger sibling, one who depends on you."

He's quiet for another long moment. "I should get you something to drink. I'm not entirely sure either of us should be sober now. Hell, I'll get you high if you want it. I cooked the stuff myself."

Connie

[fingersandteeth]

It's a full day after the native Rocket security grunt posts the footage of Connie's beatdown of Dirk on the main Rocket network that Steven finally tries to 'skype' her on the pokegear. The truth is, it takes that long because Steven has to calm down from what had been nothing short of blind murderous fury at the goddamn mook who'd decided to leak private footage of two of Steven's people in an absolutely humiliating position for shits and giggles--and an equal amount of fury at every other goddamn mook who'd replied to laugh it up.

(Given how black and rotten Steven's own innate sense of humor was, it was possibly highly hypocritical how angry he'd been at them, but Connie and Dirk were his people and the entire point of having your people is actually really giving a shit about what happens to them, so whatever.)

So yes. He'd had to let the anger take its course, which he had by ranting to a bemused Jack about everything he'd wanted to do to the goddamn mooks until even Steven had recognized he'd started to get repetitive. Mugging some random asshole that morning, even though he hadn't had a Pokemon worth stealing, had helped too a little. And so had just-- disinvesting entirely from the native Rockets in general. Honestly, being able to write them all off was even more of a relief than he'd thought it might be.

Connie, though, she was Steven's. And he'd watched (and watched and re-watched) her have a complete breakdown on Dirk, spurred on by Dirk's amazing ability to say the absolute shittiest thing possible at any given time... and at the time it had actually been happening, Steven hadn't had a goddamn clue about it.

No matter how long overdue it is, Steven really does want to check up on her. So once he's home that night, waiting for Jack to follow, he sets the gear down on the kitchen table and opens up the video chat.

"Mija?" he says, once it connects, peering at the screen with a worried expression. "I don't know if you've been paying much attention to the channels for your internship, but, ah... some fucker in security posted footage of you fighting with Dirk and. Well. I wanted to check up on you. And, uh, let you know that your Pokemon might have made some promises on your behalf that I won't make you honor."

finally here orz

[conniemaheswaran]

By the time the footage had gone up, Connie had already been unaccounted for for days. No videos, no texts, nothing. Suddenly realizing the depths of your own capacity for violence can be a harrowing thing, as Steven is well aware.

Thankfully, by the time Connie's crime uncle calls, she's in a much better place mentally. And physically. And emotionally. Just better all-around, really. (Having somebody who is cool with their own, possibly deeper capacity for violence as a close companion may have helped with that.)

Connie answers the call with a smile plain on her face. She still looks like a mess, but that's more because she's been roughing it without the luxury of a fully-equipped caravan for a few days now rather than any (severe) emotional distress. "Tío Steven? It's good to..." And then he continues, and her face falls, and she shrinks away from the screen, and looks to the side, and rubs her arm. "Oh. So that's what this is about. Um. What did the Infiltration Team do?"

Re: finally here orz

[fingersandteeth]

"Mostly promised on your behalf to teach me how to fight with swords," Steven says, apologetically. "Sword Pokemon. And, ah, maybe breed me a Honedge, in return for some future Pokemon eggs of mine. Not the current Gastlies from the last clutch—though since one of them turned out to be a Shuppet... well. It doesn't matter, those were your Pokemon pretending to be you, after all."

He shakes his head.

"So, you're doing better now? I'm sorry we can't do anything about that guy in security, but maybe after Jack takes over the, ah, board of directors... Well. Things will be different then. " He peers forward at the screen. "Where are you, anyway? I know you were traveling with Carly and her hippie friends before—are you still with them?"

[conniemaheswaran]

Connie gives Steven an appraising look, as if she were doing some complex mental math. "Yeah, no. You do not have the build for the kind of things I do with the Excaliburs. I only get away with it because I've been training to be a very acrobatic fighter since I was twelve. Sorry." Fighting like a character out of a Studio Trigger anime isn't as easy as it looks.

As soon as Steven asks where she is, Connie immediately brightens. Thank goodness that he wasn't going to grill her about Dirk. That was the last thing she needed. "Oh! I'm on Route 30 with a friend. I had to leave the caravan for... reasons, and ended up meeting this really nice girl in town. You should see her, she's amazing! She's an even better fighter than me, believe it or not, but she's so sweet as... long as you aren't a guy. Uh. So maybe you should stay away. No offense." Connie chuckles, rubbing the back of her neck. "Anyways, Akane's great, and such a blast to hang out with. It's a lot more fun than being with Carly, if I'm being honest, it's nice to actually hang out with another girl my age..."

She's going to keep on going like this for some time, Steven. You may want to stop her.

[fingersandteeth]

"No, when I think about that, I do get it," Steven says. "Let's not lie. I'm a walking brick. It's a Durante thing--I've got the build from my father's side, even if I've got the pretty face from my mother's." Seriously, the Espinozas are all fairly attractive people. Steven's mother is handsome at sixty and change; when he was little she'd been downright gorgeous. "I'm a little disappointed, but I'll live. I'll still take a sword-ghost pokemon, though."

He'll always take ghost pokemon.

He doesn't stop Connie from going on and on about Akane. Instead, he'll just listen to Connie go on and on about her new... crush? Friend? Both? It's-- hard to tell just yet. He thinks he'd have to see them together to be sure.

God, he's so relieved that Connie's doing better now.

"She sounds like she's a pretty cool person," Steven says, once Connie winds down a little. "I think I've heard her commenting on the 'gear a little? That thing Emporio did, asking about naming schemes. She named her starter T-chan, right?"

There was something about the name and naming scheme that was very familiar, actually. Like somethng he ought to recognize.

Dirk

[fingersandteeth]

Dirk, Steven waits to talk to until after he's had his chance to talk to Connie first. Although, in retrospect, knowing what he knows now, Dirk's decision to pretty much barricade himself into the robotics lab since the night Connie's pokemon had posted their meme video makes much more sense--back then, Steven had just assumed he'd been butthurt over the video's existence in the first place.

Now he knows that Dirk's sore from... well, from goading his protege into a full-fledge beatdown-slash-breakdown on his ass, Steven finds he... kind of pities Dirk a little. Not that Dirk hadn't brought it on himself, but--

But it had been brutal.

Steven could probably get Jack to let him into the lab. He is dating Dirk's alpha, after all. But it seems easier and simpler just to use Acatl to teleport in. And it's probably time someone fed and watered Dirk anyway.

So when Steven comes, it's with a bowl of rice and gravy, topped with a fried egg, in one hand and a liter bottle of room temperature orange soda in the other. If he's already pre-shaken the orange soda before the teleport... well. He's only human. At least physically these days.

"I don't know if you've seen what that fucking security mook put on the main Rocket channel," Steven says, setting the food down next to Dirk, "but I'm sure everyone in the organization has by now. My God, Dirk, could you have shoved your leg any further down your throat?"

He's not mad. It's worse than that.

He's disappointed.

[uber_marionettist]

The thing about Jack letting himself into the lab is that as soon as Dirk made it clear he didn't want to talk, Jack didn't fucking talk to him.

He just worked, in silence, until he left again.

Fine.

The thing about Steven letting himself in--

Dirk's voice echoes from somewhere in Lapras' long, mostly functional neck. It's metallic from his surroundings and bitter in the way metal is.

"What in the good goddamn makes you think I want to talk about that? Just asking. Before you go any further with this."

[fingersandteeth]

Steven shrugs. "I don't think you do. I don't care. You should just know that we all saw the security footage leak--everyone that actually matters and all the useless mooks that don't."

He's quiet for a moment before he adds, "I brought you supper. You might as well come out and eat it."

[uber_marionettist]

Steven's... everything is met with resounding silence from the inside of the Lapras. It's the sound of Dirk staring at the wires and processing the renewed intensity of his own hate-filled and hate-fuelled feelings about this kind of intrusive contempt for and indifference to his decisions.

There is also the fact that he has been living on room temperature protein shakes, fish jerky, and cup noodles for the past however many days. Steven isn't the first person in Dirk's life to do this, to trample over what he's made explicitly clear but couching it in the guise of necessity, if not outright 'good intentions.'

At least (and he does mean 'least') he can rest assured that Steven isn't even pretending to give an actual fuck about that angle.

"I don't give a fuck," he says finally and clearly. Or as clearly as an echo chamber can be.

[fingersandteeth]

"Yeah, that much is obvious," Steven says disdainfully. "Well, there's rice, gravy, egg, and room temperature orange soda when you want it."

And then he walks about ten feet away, until he finds something resembling something to sit on and he sits, pulling out a pocket paperback of A Feast For Murkrows and opening to his makeshift bookmark.

He sits and waits.

Tyler

[fingersandteeth]

A few days after their exchange of Pokemon and attempt at getting high together, Tyler will receive a text from Steven at about the time the latter would be finishing his shift at the Radio Tower.

So, it says. Quick question: do you have any experience with payroll, scheduling, accounting, hiring, purchasing, or management? If you don't, are any of these things you want to learn in order for a side hustle that should be pretty fucking lucrative? And since it's a cover business, the profits would mostly be going to us and our investor, except for a ten percent tithe back to the company.

[asmywitness]

Can I say first that you really have a way of opening with fucking incredible nonsequitors. He just needs that out there. Knowing Steven is a wild game of Mad Libs: Texts From Last Night Edition.

But actually, I have a lot of experience with inventory management, scheduling and accounting, - all of which are in the context of being the oldest of five kids and left to be responsible for most of them - and some university units covering hiring and purchasing, as part of my Masters of Publishing.

Why are we/you starting a cover business now?

[fingersandteeth]

Honestly it's Lydia's fault. That is, she came over the other night and we all talked business over supper and by the end of the night, Jack had an entire slew of new things to invest in.

One of the things she suggested was a night club and somehow that turned into a night club in Ecruteak that Lydia's going to be managing and a more hole-in-the-wall type place here in Goldenrod which, uh, I'm getting. Hers is going to have burlesque, go-go dancing, and strippers. Mine, well, it's going to have a Fight Club.

I've been needing another project anyway. I'm overqualified for my position at the Tower and I don't get nearly enough hours for me not to be at loose ends all the time. And I figured I'd see if you'd want to be part of it too? Since fuck knows we need things to do besides brood about the shit we can't change.

[asmywitness]

I mean, currently I'm working full-time in the labs, but I doubt the admin are going to get too upset if I'm just working for another branch of Rocket shit. It's not like data entry is actually difficult, most of my day is just processing Pokemon handovers. You have no idea how many Trubbish I've had to enter. Steven.

But yeah, sure. Sounds like it'll be an interesting diversion, if nothing else.

[fingersandteeth]

I mean, if the admins are trash don't they deserve to get trash?

Steven certainly thinks so.

But yeah. Exactly. Though it's not an official Rocket thing, because we want to maximize how much off the profits *we* get to keep--and you're included in that 'we,' of course. If you're going to be my right hand in this, you'll get your cut too. If this works out, we'll be able to afford all the little luxuries we'd like.

Not that Steven can't get most of those anyway, being the live-in boyfriend of a very rich man--but he'd like to get his boyfriend nice things from time to time. Nicer things than he's been able to afford on his receptions' wages--and you can't get your rich boyfriend presents with his own credit card. It just doesn't work that way.

Plus, the Fight Club itself should be a lot of fun.

Carly

[fingersandteeth]

Carly will end up getting the video call in the early afternoon, a few days into the new month.

"Hey," Steven says if she answers it, looking... well, kind of tired and concerned. "Are you somewhere that you we can talk privately? I've got-- something I can't really talk to anyone else about right now. If not, that's fine. I can text. Or you can call me back. Jack shouldn't be home for a while yet anyway and this-- well, it's nothing that won't keep for a week or two."

[insidescoop]

Carly watched the video with...a bit of a dead-eyed look, admittedly. Private...talks...

"...I don't like the sounds of that..."

Booooo. Whatever she's calling back.

And looking a little less concerned, she'll just play casual. "Hi~!"

Ahem. "It's just me in the Caravan right now, is everything alright..?"

[fingersandteeth]

When Steven answers her return call, he's down in Jack's finished basement with his ghosts gathered around him.

"Uh. Yes... and no? It's. Fuck, it's complicated, Carly." He rakes his fingers through his short hair, leaving it askew. "It's. Just. God, it was so much easier before, you know? When he was just someone I knew and enjoyed talking to, but I didn't-- I guess maybe even then I kind of cared a little what happened to him. But only in a very sort of basic way? Like, I care if you live or die. I don't want to hurt you if possible. But now... god. I don't know what it is about him. He's just-- he's such a good kid, so much better of a person than me, and he's clever and he's curious and-- fuck. I did it fucking again. The exact thing Tyler chewed me out for doing at him, only I guess at least I did this to someone who didn't have his empathy more or torn out from him. And, well, with at least some actual similarities in personality... ah, fuck."

He pulls off his glasses so that he can knead his forehead, groaning softly. "Armin. It's about Armin. I-- fucking care about him, Carly. Like-- well and truly invested, giving well and beyond the minimal number of shits about him. How am I even supposed to do Dirk's Lapras heist now? Even to ride in a giant robot?"

[insidescoop]

"Wait wait wait wait-"

Oiiiiii oOIIIIIII!

"Back up to the part where we're apparently stealing from Armin? Steven you need to remember I've been back in Goldenrod maybe three times, for a day or two at most, and a lot of it really hasn't been in the lab..."

[fingersandteeth]

"Oh," Steven says, removing the hand and putting his glasses back on. "Right. Right, of course. But you do know about Dirk's giant Lapras robot he's been building, right? The one that Jack's helping him with? I don't know all the details yet, but Tyler and I sometimes pop in to feed and otherwise bother him and-- well. They're building it so they can steal a shitton of Lapras. From someone who sure as fuck sounded like Armin from the description and then when Dirk and I were bouncing ideas for possibly weaponizing the head a couple weeks ago, I mentioned Armin as someone we'd have to get past and he didn't contradict me."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. "And I gave Dirk good advice then too. Because I had no fucking clue I'd actually start to care this much about Armin. But-- fuck, Carly. He's just-- god, he reminds me of Charley, that's what he does. Brilliant, curious, that love of games and speculative fiction, caring... and god, so good. He honestly cares about people in the abstract--that's fucking hard, Carly. People say they do, but a lot of the time they really don't and they just want to believe they do. But he really does."